


Let Me Save You (Just This Once)

by bonn



Series: JILYCHALLENGE [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Marauders' Era, Shrieking Shack, jilychallenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 02:59:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9528860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonn/pseuds/bonn
Summary: for january's jilychallenge over on tumblr dot comprompt: the shrieking shack





	

**Author's Note:**

> did what i could with the prompt
> 
> come talk to me over at bantasticbeasts dot tumblr dot com
> 
> xoxo gossip bonn

It’s a secret Hogsmeade date, _their_ secret Hogsmeade date. It’s just the two of them, no Sirius, or Mary, or Remus or any of them. It’s a few hours alone carved out of a Saturday because exams are coming up, and castle security is getting tighter, and if they don’t take a break, they are going to break. 

Lily meets James in the common room, and he takes her hand tightly, too tightly, and leads her to one of those ridiculous secret passages he and his boys have managed to weed out in the last six and a half years. The passageway is _freezing_ , and she presses close to him, partially for the warmth, but mostly because as the days get longer and graduation gets closer she’s more and more afraid to let him go. 

They emerge, shivering, in the basement of Honeydukes, and the owner, to his credit, doesn’t seem alarmed at their appearance at all. James gives him a tight smile as they pass him, clapping him familiarly on the shoulder, and then they’re out on the street with the winter sunlight to warm them.

Lily remembers the first time she came here, in third year with Severus, and he tried to act so disinterested because _whatever, Lils, I guess it’s o_ -kay. Coming to Hogsmeade with James – _James Potter_ , of _all_ people – is such a different experience that it might be a different town entirely.

She likes it, as she watches him, likes witnessing the tension leave him, likes that the weight of the world lifts from his broad shoulders (even if it’s only for a few precious hours). James buys her a blueberry danish from Eleanora Digg’s, and she barely even fights him on it, and they _are_ happy, aren’t they? They’re tense, and strained, and anxiety keeps them both up at night, but they’re happy. They’re happy.

Lily clings to that. 

James lobs a handful of slushy snow at her ear.

She chases him up the hill behind High Street, fumbling in the snow, slipping to her knees and back to her feet like she was born doing it, and James laughs as he crests it and turns around to watch her. His breath is fogging and the sound is too loud, too foreign, too carefree. 

She throws a gloved hand around his ankle and brings him down next to her, and she kisses him as he groans, a soft and sweet thing, and he’s _so lucky_ , he thinks, _to belong to her_. 

She scrambles to her feet, and hauls him up, and they grin at each other.

“Let’s do something stupid,” Lily says, and James’ smile widens, as if to say _I’m listening_. Lily surveys the town as she turns in a slow circle, until her eyes land on the run down hovel on the other side of the hill. 

He shakes his head as she points to it, and his boyish glee slips a little bit, but she writes it off as their impending graduation, as the war, as his parents’ ever-worsening health. She takes his hand and they stumble down the other side of the hill, and James only just manages to drag them to a stop before they collide with the side of the shack. 

Lily runs a hand over the weather-beaten cladding, and leans forward to try to peer through the grubby window. “I can’t see in,” she says, frowning, and starts around the side toward the front door, but James stays rooted to the spot. “Don’t you want to know what’s inside?” she asks, tugging at his sleeve, her eyes alight with adventure. 

An uneasiness settles over them, a not entirely foreign silence stretching on for miles, and James wills her to let this go, _please, Lily_. They’ve been so in sync recently, so in tune with each-others’ thoughts and feelings, and it feels like the floor’s been ripped from underneath them. It’s jarring to be at heads with her. 

The world crashes back down around him, and Lily watches him wither under it until, quietly, with a crack in his voice, “I know what’s inside.” She falters for a second, head cocked as she searches his face for an answer, but he doesn’t give anything away besides a deep sadness. He watches realisation spark in her expression, understanding hitting her all at once, and his heart is heavy. 

“The shrieking…”

“It’s him.”

Lily is quiet, and James mistakes this for pensiveness, for concession, for the end of it. He squeezes her hand lightly, and her head snaps up, eyes blazing again. “I want to see it.”

James’ face is solemn, weary, _fatigued_. “No, you don’t.”

Fury rises in Lily, ugly and vindictive and sudden, and James almost flinches away from it. Who are they becoming, who are they being _made_ by this war? He doesn’t know her in this moment. “I’m not a child, James. I can handle it.” Her voice is like steel, biting and ruthless, and it scares him.

James looks pained, and it makes him older, ages him by _years_. Lily feels empty, weightless all of a sudden, and her anger bleeds out of her, too tired to hold onto it. “I don’t want you to have to,” he tells her, and tucks her in against his chest. “There are going to be plenty of awful, horrible things to see once we leave here. Let me save you, just this once.”


End file.
